Mike Tang spent a night in jail and faces a year of parenting classes and picking up trash for his choice of discipline.
Mike Tang was charged with child endangerment for leaving his 8-year-old son in a grocery store parking lot a mile from home. It was supposed to be a life lesson.
"I just wanted to reinforce that money is hard to earn and that, if he doesn't do a good job at school, he could end up sleeping...[with] the homeless," says Tang, who lives in the Southern California suburb of Corona.
The incident took place after Mike caught Isaac cutting corners on his homework. At about 7:45 p.m., he drove him to the parking lot and drove away. About 10 minutes later, Tang's father came to pick him up.
But Isaac had already been picked up: He was in police custody. A stranger had spotted the boy and called the cops, who arrested Tang, and he spent the night in county jail. A jury later convicted him of child endangerment, and the judge sentenced him to parenting classes and a 56-day work release program picking up trash and doing other menial work.
Mike is refusing to serve the sentence, and there's an outstanding arrest warrant for his failure to comply. He scrawled a response on top of the warrant and mailed it back.
"Fuck you all!" Mike's written response begins. "Walking on a public sidewalk at 7:45 p.m. is not child endangerment."
Is Mike right, or did he jeopardize Isaac's safety? And was it appropriate for the police to intervene?
"It rises to the level of unusual. It rises to the level of, perhaps, controversial. But it was not literally dangerous. That's not a crime," says journalist and Reason contributor Lenore Skenazy, founder of the Free Range Kids movement.
Watch the full video above and decide for yourself.
Approximately 5 minutes. Produced by Zach Weissmueller. Camera by Weissmueller and Alex Manning. Music by Blue Dot Sessions.
DOOD! I can sympathize with your goals,and even applaud you for trying to teach your child survival skills,but leave a 8 year old alone in a city street away from his home on purpose????
Do you NOT understand that cities are overflowing with freaks that have no good judgement whatsoever,and the kind of potential dangers you were exposing your son to while trying to teach him a life lesson?
I could go along with it if the boy had been 12,but 8?
You are lucky your punishment was a hell of a lot harsher than it was,and you are also lucky that boy wasn't snatched up by a pervert in those few moments he was alone.
